All's Fair in Love and War
by monstersandlostboys
Summary: The only boy who's ever caught Bella's attention has caught her best friend's as well. As passive as she is, will Bella let Rosalie have her Edward, or will she follow the advice of the newest freak in Forks and do what it takes to get what she wants?


The Masens - Esme and her son Edward - they were different from the rest of us small town Washingtonians. They were born in Forks like the rest of us, but they had the opportunity to leave, and they took it.

But then they were back. They ran around the whole planet and lived in worlds that most people in Forks would never understand. They lived…elsewhere, and they came _back _to Forks. That's what _I _couldn't comprehend.

Ms. Masen and her son, who was now sixteen, after eleven years, moved their things back into the tiny home across the street from my father's. It was a thin, two storied house paneled in white, and a graveyard of a garden that had belonged to Esme so long ago still lined the front porch. It had remained empty; unchanged in the years that the Masen's were gone. No one buys a home in Forks. In Forks, nothing changes.

They moved in on the last day of summer vacation. The customary imprisoning layer of clouds overhead would lead you to believe otherwise, but children all over town were soaking in their last minutes of summertime freedom.

Not me. I had a dance lesson in Port Angeles at three and until then, I was busy watching the Masens from my second story window. I was trying to remember them. I couldn't see them very well on account of the thick fog and their over exaggerated rain coats covering their heads, but I was sure if I looked hard enough, I would be able to recognize them.

Charlie said that the Masens were last in Forks when I was four and he and my mother were only twenty-two. They were married and happy, as far as he was concerned, and Esme, beautiful, lonely, and older than they at twenty-five years old, would leave Edward at our house every Saturday evening. We were at innocent enough ages that my parents had him fall sleep next to me in my room. Esme must have picked him up early the next day, because I was alone when I woke up every Sunday morning.

That's all that I remembered. I couldn't remember what Edward or Esme looked like. I couldn't remember what we did for fun. I couldn't remember the Masens and I couldn't recall my mother either.

My mother was like Esme in the way that she saw a way out of Forks, and she took it. But Esme, even after leaving Edward in Forks with us, for hundreds of Saturdays to go live a secret life in Port Angeles, or wherever she went, took him with her when she left for good. My mother abandoned me here.

When the Masens moved back to Forks, I was still waiting for her to come back for me.

Eventually, the two hooded figures stopped pulling boxes from the rented truck parked in their driveway. They slid the truck door closed and they slammed their front door shut. Home sweet home. I immediately felt bad for not going out to help them earlier. We were neighbors, after all.

My phone buzzed and I picked it up without looking away from the now motionless yard of the Masens. I hesitantly glanced down at the screen that said that Rosalie and her mother were now on their way to pick me up.

I grimaced and stood, grabbing my bag filled with the things I'd need for dance class. I looked at myself in the mirror and clawed at my dull hair with gnawed at fingernails. My reflection was the same pale, tired, and bored one that was always there. I wondered idly if my mother looked the same. I hoped that she was much prettier.

Suddenly, the guilt of ignoring my neighborly duties was too much to stand. Esme and Edward Masen were probably cold and lonely in their house, with nothing to do and no one to talk to but each other. No one understood them and no one would try to here. People in Forks are notorious for pretending to care, just to get some good gossip out of someone.

I should have made a casserole or something. Cookies or brownies. Something to let the Masens know that the Swans were generally not as bad as everyone else in town. I didn't have time to make anything, but I thought that I should go downstairs and just say hello before Rosalie came over.

I slid on my boots, grabbed my bag, and was careful not to fall as I ran down the stairs - that was a surefire way to slow things down when I was in a hurry.

I threw the front door open and was surprised to find a raised fist poised to knock on my face. It fell and I was able to focus on the person attached to it.

"Sorry," he said, looking down and yanking at his hair. I stared in awe, my hand still holding the door handle. He glanced up at me apologetically and cleared his throat. "Uh, I'm Edward. Masen. From across the street." He threw his thumb over his shoulder towards his house. "We've met. Apparently. Uh, you're Bella."

He smiled ruefully and I blushed. I did _not _remember him at all. A half a foot taller than me, and with eyes as green as…Forks, he was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. His hair was the oddest penny color and was mussed on top of his head. He was almost as pale as me but pretty brown freckles dusted his nose and his cheeks and his neck; his hands that he wrung between us. I could tell beneath his windbreaker and scarf that he was lanky and he seemed more of a life-sized winter ad than a boy standing on my porch. I would definitely buy whatever _he _was selling.

I blinked rapidly, realizing he was waiting for me to speak. "I'm Bella," I said stupidly. My cheeks were as red as Rudolf.

He let out a gust of air that was almost a chuckle. "Yeah," he said.

It was quiet for a very long time, and Edward shifted his weight from one foot to another. "Oh!" I exclaimed, opening the door wider. "Did you want to come in? I mean, I was just heading over to your place, and-"

"Uh, no, actually. I was suppose to invite you and your dad over. My mom's making lunch and she wanted to, uh, catch up." He pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, looking at my feet.

"We'd love to," I told him breathlessly, silently closing the front door behind me. "But Charlie's at work. And uh, I have dance."

I suppose the distaste was evident in my voice, because Edward looked up at me and smiled crookedly. "I take it we don't like dance?" he said.

I laughed harder than was necessary and shook my head, holding my bag to my chest. "I hate it. Two left feet."

"Then why don't you quit?" He asked.

There it was, plain as day. I should quit. For some reason, the suggestion was completely new and brilliant. Of course I'd thought of it before, but not as a real option. And there it was, the most obvious thing in the world.

That's the thing about people who are different: They change things.

Though, reality hit me quickly. "I can't," I remembered. "Rosalie. I'm doing it with her, and she…doesn't want to be alone. Plus, quitting…isn't the Swan way."

Edward shrugged. "But you're unhappy. Is it worth it? If you're doing something you don't like, then you're wasting the time you could be using to do things you _do _like. Life's short." Even during this time, in which Edward used the longest sentences I had have heard so far, he avoided eye contact for too long.

I sighed, wishing he'd look at me. "I don't know what I like to do." I admitted.

Mrs. Hale's minivan pulled up into the driveway behind Edward and the thought of leaving him made my stomach drop. He looked over his shoulder and smiled for a second, but it dropped quickly. "That's why you have to try things you never done before. Painting, cooking, photography." He looked at my hands. "Piano hands," he labeled them. He paused, stepping to the side "I'm sorry, that must be your ride."

I nodded and turned to lock the front door. "Nice meeting you…again. Edward." He nodded and I stepped onto the driveway. I stopped and looked behind my shoulder at him still standing motionless on my porch. "You going to Forks High?"

"Yeah," he said. "Mom's the new English teacher."

I nodded. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow." I ran to the van and got inside, my heart beating in my chest as I watched Edward make his way down the porch and driveway from behind the safety of tinted windows.

Rosalie, sitting in the front seat next to Mrs. Hale, leered as he walked. "Who's that?" She turned in her seat to see him better when Mrs. Hale pulled out and began to drive away.

"Edward Masen," I told her, almost proudly. _My _Edward Masen. We've been friends since we were babies, you know.

"He's cute." She smiled, and a wave of nausea made me fall back in my seat. He wasn't cute, he was beautiful. Beautiful enough, even, for Rosalie Hale, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and not to mention, I added bitterly in my mind, pulling at my loose shirt as I thought, not-flat-chested.

I hadn't noticed Rosalie's twin brother Jasper beside me until he scoffed and murmured, "Whore."

"Jasper!" Mrs. Hale scolded as Rosalie turned in her seat to glare and sneer, "Shut up, you lonely creep. At least I can get a date. The only girl who talks to you is Bella and she only does that out of pity!"

The van was then in chaos, and no amount of poor Mrs. Hale's shouting could reign in her twins who'd been fighting since the day they were born.

"I was thinking that I could maybe quit dance, Rose." I said, loud enough to be heard.

"Huh?" She glanced at me in confusion, still holding onto Jasper's hair from her spot in the front.

"Yeah. I'm not very good, you know, and uh, dancing's your thing." I frowned at my hands. "I was thinking that maybe we could take another class together. Painting, cooking, uh, photography. I have piano hands." I smiled faintly. "I mean, you could still take dance, but, uh. I don't know, never mind."

Rosalie righted herself in her seat and pat down her hair. "No, Bella. I didn't know…that you didn't like dance. I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do, you know, for me. We'll find something else." She cleared her throat and reached to turn on the radio.

I smiled out at the mush of green that sped past me. Green as green as eyes.

_A/N Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Review, pretty please?_


End file.
